List Price: Price Unavailable
Sale Price: $499.95
Today's Bonus:
- Eight high quality, award-winning Focus rite pre-amps provide the best sounding interface in its class.
- High-quality 24-bit/96kHz fire wire interface provides pristine audio quality and guaranteed reliable synchronization.
- Total i/o count of 20 inputs and 20 outputs, with a host of i/o options provided.
- Suite of Focus rite VST/AU plug-ins will upgrade your standard sequencer effects
- Two separate headphone buses allow two artists to receive independent and fully-customized monitor mixes.
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I originally bought this to supplement my 01v96 mixer for more inputs and outputs strictly for live sound use. It does that very well and I've had zero issues with it. I'm glad I went with this over any presonus equivalents. I don't do a lot of recording but I tested it out when I first got it.I run a Dell inspiron 1525 W7x64 pc laptop. 3g ram, 2.0 GHZ core 2 duo processor. I've had it almost 3 years now.
At first I tried using a external firewire card (a recommended startech model with a texas instruments chipset), and that was a horrible experience. I couldn't keep a sync with the the saffire and when I did have it it was horribly laggy and unusable. I hooked it up to set my internal patching for live use, and saved it to the hardware for standalone mode. I managaed to get through that but with the lousy firewire connection it couldn't handle any recording whatsoever. I didn't really care at the time because that's not what I bought it for. I did try it on my friends macbook pro at the time and it worked fine.
Several months later I realized that I had a 4 pin firewire port built in to my laptop. (4 pin offers the same function but cannot power external devices) So I tried it out with that port 6 to 4 pin firewire cable and sure enough, no lag, solid connection with no dropouts. For the sake of testing how much this pc could handle I recorded 12 inputs into ableton for about 30 minutes straight. I plugged in my EVO into the first two inputs of the saffire and routed those into 10 channels of my 01v96 and then back into the saffire via adat for 12 recording tracks total. Solid. No dropouts, no pops, no glitches. My cpu was running about 60-75% during this process.
I'm now even more impressed with the saffire as its I/O count for a unit of that cost and quality is quite nice. Perfect in conjunction with a digital mixer because then you can utilize the adat and spdif I/O. They claim 20 inputs but the last two are loop through from other internal software/online media in the computer, so I call it a solid 18 into a DAW with this unit. I will now be looking into mobile live recording because with the mixer its a compact setup that allows me to record 18 simultaneous tracks and for most bands that's plenty.
For an even smaller setup for when I just need a couple pre's into the computer without a mixer I will be purchasing a Saffire pro 24. And with that I can get the last 6 channels of my 01v96 into a DAW as well via ADAT.
So for what I do its extremely versatile and well performing unit. To top it off it has great metering onboard and the knobs feel solid.
Its a great and affordable piece of gear.
UPDATE: My one beef with this unit is that it appears I'm unable to get a decent latency when recording my guitar direct. Which mostly likely in the future will lead me to an RME interface. But for now and for live sound use/mobile recording this is a great, affordable interface.Great firewire interface recording unit. I am using this with Windows 7 64 bit and Sonar 8.5.3 Professional Edition. I have tried many different interface units and the Saffire Pro 40 has been the easiest to install and use. The preamps are very good and better than other units I tried. The only negative is the latency, as with most firewire devices but even that is not a big issue. I have been using this unit for two years and if it were to fail (out of warranty) I would buy another.I have had the chance to play around with this unit for about a month. I upgraded to the Focusrite Pro 40 from the M-audio Delta 66 (which by the way, was a bullet proof solid little unit that I used for about 8 years).
As of right now, I couldn't be happier with my decision to upgrade to the Focusrite. I am currently using WinXP SP3 on an older model Pentium 4 with 2 GB ram firewire interface.
My Recording experience: I have been dabbling for about 10 years. In the past, I have primarily used audio interfaces with direct-ins for guitars, and ambient for drums. Basically, I record my bands for personal use. I have recently built a dedicated recording studio and intend to get more serious about sound reproduction, possibly expanding out to acoustic/ambient recording for guitars, horns, and other musical instruments.
Hardware:
Pros: My primary uses are the Mic-in/ Mic-out. They accept both XLR and 1/4 inch. There is a fantom power button for inputs 5-8, mute buttons, monitoring levels, etc. So far I have had no issues with the hardware that i've used. I have not used the ADAT, Optical, or MIDI functionality yet, but expect they will be as seamless as the other inputs.
It is worth noting, that the Pre-amps on the focusrite unit are excellent. (Previously, I used the Mackie CFX 20-mkII and connected the 4 sub-outs to the Delta 66 which produced a very good recording with very little to no noise and consistent levels). Everything i have input to the focusrite has been crystal clear (5 different guitar setups, 2 different vocal mics-shure/audiotechnica, audiotechnica base drum mic and overhead ambient mics).
Overall, the functionality of the hardware has been top-notch with crystal clear recording.
Software:
Pros: I am still getting used to the functionality with respect to channel routing and controlling the software/hardware. The only limitations I am finding is that I have not been able to spend enough time to fully understand how it all works together. From my limited experience, the channel routing is very versatile. It is possible to route just about anything from anywhere. For example, playback from your DAW can be routed to say output channel 5&6 (in my case, i send these out to a headphone amplifier) where the user can listen to the playback, while recording back into channels, say 1&2, to the DAW on a separate track. At the same time, either signal (input or output) can be monitored to, say output channel 3&4. This allows the soundman listen to either the full playback or just the isolated new track.
A nice feature, that actually works, with this software is that you can save profiles. This allows you to spend some time to get your gear up and running, working the way you want and SAVE the settings that you have. You can simply hit the "save as", give your setup a meaningful profile name, and easily recall it later. This is a real TIME SAVER! The delta 66 software had a similar feature, but never actually worked!!
Again, I haven't had a lot of experience with the focusrite pro40 yet but so far I'm very happy, and impressed with the versatility and features.
Hardware:
Cons: As a personal preference, I'm not crazy about channels 1&2 being on the front of the board. For me, it is clutter on the front of my rack system, and more potential for bumping into chords and possibly wrecking the chord or plug.
I would happily exchange a few of the other "inputs" for more analog ins/outs.
Although I have looked real deep into this, I believe that it is stated that there is an ability to daisy chain two or more of these together. Based on what I have read, you can't really do this yet. Hopefully, Focusrite will iron this out by the time I decide to expand.
There is no Effects loop. There is a simple work around for this, but it would be nice to have that functionality in the unit. I introduced a separate mixer (with sub-standard behringer preamps). By doing this, I can plug (in my case) vocal mics, run my effects loop, then run the main outs back to the Focusrite. Unfortunately, this is bad for at least two reasons: 1. introducing another piece of equipment before the focusrite degrades the recorded sound, especially if the preamps are junk. 2. It adds another piece of equipment that you either have to have laying around, or go purchase.
Software:
Cons: So far, I'm pretty happy with the software. Since I have such a low amount of experience with the software, I have nothing really bad to say about it. What I can say is that it is leaps and bounds above the Delta 66 software that I was using.
Additional Thoughts:
Although you could probably use this unit in a professional setting, in my opinion this unit is mainly for home users. If your in a professional studio, your likely using something else anyway.
Beginners: If you are a beginner that has never used an audio interface, there will be a moderate learning curve with the Focusrite system. I have a lot of experience with M-Audio, and "brushes" of experience with TASCAM and Pre-Sonus. Based on what I have seen, the beginner is going to have a better overall experience and be more productive with this Focusrite unit. I believe this is a good unit for a beginner because there is enough functionality to grow into, and enough versatility to keep you interested in the unit for years to come.
Moderate Users:
If you have some experience with other audio interfaces you will be pleased with the sound reproduction, versatility of the software, ASIO drivers, profile saving functionality, channel routing, multi-mix capability, MIDI features, and expansion abilities (if/when they straighten everything out).
Overall, I couldn't be happier with this unit. Focusrite listened to their end-users and produced a nice piece of recording equipment for home users at a fair price.Excellent audio interface, especially at this price range. I primarily use mine for a theatre playback interface, utilizing the outputs, but also have used it as a recording interface and often as a standalone pre, sending mic signals out over the ADAT port to expand a system for live mixing. The box sounds excellent, easy to setup, no driver issues, and a easy to use computer GUI.
My experience of the audio quality is simple. Recording to my guitar amplifier through the computer with a Sennheiser E609 microphone, the reproduction is simply exactly what I hear from the amp itself. What other people are describing as "great preamplifiers" in practice is that I simply don't have to think about the recording-set the input gain appropriately, and your DAW gets your input.
A common objection to the software is that it's not intuitive to use the channel routing software. For software that lets _any_ input route to _any_ output channel, there's not much more simple it could be made.
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